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3rd April 2020

RFU Confirmed Newcastle Falconsí promotion to the Gallagher Premiership for the 2020-21 season

Will ignore the above slur. The report is brilliant and its recommendations could save Prem rugby which is teetering on the brink. PRL, RFU etc must use the Covid Crisis as an opportunity to get the pro game on a sensible footing. We might not get another opportunity.

Myner's recommendations are just that, they have no force until they are voted in by PRL. It is notable that players have to declare very bit of income& have to be prepared to to share their tax returns. DORs are also very responsible- they should know or have known of any salary regs. breach,
if not they become culpable.

The marquee player fiddle was to enable clubs who were breaching the salary cap to miraculously not breach it the following season while keeping the same expensive contracted players. It should be scrapped, the cap lowered to something more like what the clubs can sustainably afford, and the punishment for deliberately & cynically breaking the rules should be crippling.

Monkey1The marquee player fiddle was to enable clubs who were breaching the salary cap to miraculously not breach it the following season while keeping the same expensive contracted players. It should be scrapped, the cap lowered to something more like what the clubs can sustainably afford, and the punishment for deliberately & cynically breaking the rules should be crippling.

Definitely a sop to the clubs struggling (or refusing) to stay under the cap, but it was only ever a short term solution. Just making names up here, but if Saracens' salary cap suddenly no longer includes Farrell and Itoje, then Billy and Mako might understandably say "Well, you've got a bit more money free to increase our salaries". So it keeps a club under the cap short-term but causes problems down the line.

Guardian article: "The number of players costing their clubs at least £300,000 per year has risen from five in the 2013&#8209;14 season to 99 in 2019-20, with the 24 marquee players costing their mostly loss-making clubs a total of £14m in 2019-20. "

This is incredible. Other than *maybe* Toby Flood because of his career and profile, I can't think of any other player we could possibly be paying £300,000 to. Worcester and Irish can't have too many. So the other 10 clubs must have a fair few between them. To stay under the salary cap with so many highly-paid players, there must either be some fiddling going on at several clubs, or their other players are being paid very little. Either way, these salaries surely aren't sustainable against current turnover.

I don't begrudge any player maximising their own earnings, but from the clubs' point of view, surely salaries need to be controlled better. Scrapping the marque player (over a few years perhaps, to prevent lots of lower-paid players being dumped to make room for Charles Piutau etc in the cap), is a start.

Fewer overseas signings. Fewer over paid players. Al clubs living within their means.

Our turnover is c £10 million. That includes paying for a rugby union squad, a rugby league squad and all the other wages and costs associated with running a professional sports club. We have been £2-£4million short each year for a while. This is simply not sustainable and even a full KP wouldn't fill the shortfall ( and there isn't the interest in the game to fill KP).

The salary bill has to reduce across the board and if that means English clubs can't compete with the French and Irish in Europe, so be it. At least the game will be on a sustainable footing.

To add to Monkey's post I quote fromM yer's report- ' It is clear to me that the marquee-players exemption completely cuts across the objectives of equality and competition and creates unhelpful inflation pressure on wages.' Despite this Briss have signed Radradra in addition to Charles Piatau !

This is no different to the premier league though. You have the likes of Man City able to buy anyone they want and a small number of clubs financially capable of competing at the very top for honours whilst the rest scrap against relegation and dream of a mid table finish. It's difficult to financially limit English teams who are playing in European competitions against teams that have financial superiority and much stronger squad as a result.
There should be a sensible cap but whatever it is there will still be teams who can't compete. And equally you can't add in owner 'means testing' as a criteria for promotion. If the cap was limited then it may attract other wealthy individuals to invest if its not seen as a black hole.
The punishment should be clinical and brutal to those who break it. Saracens have got no more than they deserve though stripping them of their titles would also seem fair as athletes caught doping lose their medals. I think Bath needs to be very careful to as they are 'allegedly' guilty too but have escaped free , which seems unfair and allows Saracens to take the full hit. Exeter have right to be upset but need to appreciate that it is the relegated teams, like us who have lost the most.
We are incredibly lucky to have Semore running our club and being steadfast in ensuring its survival and competitiveness in the current environment . I would just like to see him having the chance to recoup some of his losses whilst seeing the team he has looked after bring him home some silverware to give him some reward.
Let's ring fence the premiership , let's share tv rights and get outside investment , all teams getting the same budget each year, all teams equally attractive to players. And see where we end up.

My twopence worth, scrap the marquee player rule, it does nothing for English rugby or promoting young English players. Secondly, I donít agree with a one size fits all salary cap, it should be a percentage of turnover, adjusted for producing players for the National team. Not sure why, say Tiggs with a bigger fan footfall canít spend more than us, or Sale who have a relatively poor fan base. (Despite the heroics of our commercial team)

Implement the report's recommendations now. If it means Prem clubs cannot compete with French clubs so be it. Do we really need European competition? I mean NEED. My only concern is the future of top-level English rugby. This is what we see the most of. If the report is not acted on, I fear for the future of the Falcons and our domestic competition.

Picking up on rafpilot's point about owners, I checked owners in the Sunday Times richlist and other sources: SteveLansdown (Briss)£1.35bn., Nigel Wray (before stepping downfrom Sarries )£315m,Bruce Craig (Bath)£300 + sponsorship from the richest man in the UK, Dyson. At the other exteme is Jed Mc Crory (Wuss) £4m.

Horus , interesting stats. I guess it's just a shame that clubs struggle to make a profit which means the owners have to support financially . In an ideal world it would be cost neutral for them, with the club simply enjoying their business savvy to promote and organise the club .

Rafpilot2000This is no different to the premier league though. You have the likes of Man City able to buy anyone they want and a small number of clubs financially capable of competing at the very top for honours whilst the rest scrap against relegation and dream of a mid table finish. It's difficult to financially limit English teams who are playing in European competitions against teams that have financial superiority and much stronger squad as a result.
There should be a sensible cap but whatever it is there will still be teams who can't compete. And equally you can't add in owner 'means testing' as a criteria for promotion. If the cap was limited then it may attract other wealthy individuals to invest if its not seen as a black hole.
The punishment should be clinical and brutal to those who break it. Saracens have got no more than they deserve though stripping them of their titles would also seem fair as athletes caught doping lose their medals. I think Bath needs to be very careful to as they are 'allegedly' guilty too but have escaped free , which seems unfair and allows Saracens to take the full hit. Exeter have right to be upset but need to appreciate that it is the relegated teams, like us who have lost the most.
We are incredibly lucky to have Semore running our club and being steadfast in ensuring its survival and competitiveness in the current environment . I would just like to see him having the chance to recoup some of his losses whilst seeing the team he has looked after bring him home some silverware to give him some reward.
Let's ring fence the premiership , let's share tv rights and get outside investment , all teams getting the same budget each year, all teams equally attractive to players. And see where we end up.

I'm 100% onboard with that! A team like us coming down and putting 40+ points on a team like Doncaster does far more damage to the Championship than ringfencing ever will.

13 team league, 18 game season (6 teams twice, 3 teams once at home, 3 teams once away)

6 team play-off format.

Season starts in February and the final on the last Saturday in September.

Ideally I would like a 14 team league with the teams split into North/South conferences but don't think that'll happen with Leeds going to the wall.

Myner's report states the recommendations should be accepted and implemented en bloc. Already there is a attempt to cherry pick bits. Lansdown supports the salary cap at £7.0m, but wants to keep the marquee rule (no surprise then). Then how many marquee players would there be at Briss? In addition to Charles Piutau and Semi Radrada, All Black Steve Lautau is in the squad. He will be joined by Kyle Sinckler. The marquee rules only allows two players to exceed the salary cap.

HorusMyner's report states the recommendations should be accepted and implemented en bloc. Already there is a attempt to cherry pick bits. Lansdown supports the salary cap at £7.0m, but wants to keep the marquee rule (no surprise then). Then how many marquee players would there be at Briss? In addition to Charles Piutau and Semi Radrada, All Black Steve Lautau is in the squad. He will be joined by Kyle Sinckler. The marquee rules only allows two players to exceed the salary cap.

Having two players like Piutau and Radrada outside the cap, would leave more room inside the cap for players like Lautau and Sinckler. Which of course isn't the point of the marquee player rule, but we'd be naive to think it doesn't happen.

aidanbWe all need to recognise ourselves in this picture.
PRL and the goings on aren't a fantasy episode on the other side of the pitch barrier.

When rugby returns we need it to be sustainable and healthy.

I will happily see the Falcons survive with 45 local lads if it means the rest of the top flight does the same.

non of this cheating bollocks. etc...

reset

I quite agree. I don't think the game is sustainable in it's current format. I think marquee players allowance is utter rubbish, it distorts squad value. If they don't accept these findings I think it will be an six or eight team league because who can afford losses year on year?

Some of the individual losses were staggering Ė Wasps in excess of £14m, Worcester more than £13m and Bristol over £12m. (pugbypass). Other big losers 4th Quins £11m in excess; 5th Falcons£7m in excess; 6th Saracens £6m in excess. Wow! So we are in the top half of a rugby table that I hope never happens again.

As a Bristol supporter can I just say that I'd take the reported losses with a pinch of salt. Largely because Bristol rugby is part of a larger entity that isn't based in the UK and actually files small company accounts which tell you virtually nothing. I'm not saying there aren't hefty losses just that Rugbypass has no real way of knowing what they are (plus that period includes time in the Championship which distorts whatever picture you manage to draw and also money gets shifted around within Bristol Sport in tax efficient ways that are difficult to follow even where you can find it reported). However our very wealthy owner is taking steps to ensure financial viability without his support or, at least, reduced support). For example there are further plans to develop the ground: an indoor arena for the basketball that can be used for conferences and as a concert venue, a hotel, retail and office space and residential development. All contributing to Bristol Sport. Additionally a state of the art training facility largely paid for by the CVC money.

I'm not sure I entirely believe that marquee players are particularly inflationary for salaries within the Premiership. Yes, someone might want to get close to what, say Piutau is supposed to be getting (not a £million but still a lot) but that can only be accommodated within the cap. Which means less for other players, a smaller squad, use of academy players etc. As youngsters develop they'll rightly want to be paid more and clubs will have to do that within the cap or they will move on. The thing that always made me suspicious of $aracen$ is not that they had big names but that players from its excellent academy tended to stay but nobody else moved on. That's what the cap should ensure. For those who point the finger of rumour at Bristol (which I fully understand) I would, in turn, point to how we lose both experienced and young players which we would rather keep. The real inflationary pressure on wages occurs elsewhere in the world with France, Japan and increasingly the US competing internationally for players.

I hope I get to see Radradra tearing up the Premiership but there's no way we could afford him within the salary cap. Well, not and have many other players. Who wouldn't want to see top players like that? I can see that marquee players have slightly distorting effect on the competition ion argument for the salary cap. After all the Premiership oughtn't to be a league consisting of the two richest owners of teams 10 miles apart and the rest nowhere. But two players in a side do not make that much difference when professional rugby is a game of large matchday squads and specialist positions; Radradra on his own can play in every position. Obviously they must make some difference otherwise why spend the money but not all of that is on the pitch, some of it is commercial in attracting fans and sponsorship, some of it will in providing an example for other players to learn from.

Also, I'm not saying that Myners' report isn't spot on with other recommendations about openness and beefed up salary cap controls etc. Just that singling out marquee players as a cause of wage inflation seems a weak conclusion.

Lansdown's breathtaking arrogance continues. Having previously stated he wants to keep marquee players, he now rubbishes other club owners. He now says of the other owners, if they cannot keep up financially, and if they don't they will fall by the wayside and others will come and replace them.

Lansdown was criticising other owners who were trying to balance the books, in the horrendous current losses. Player wages are the biggest cost for a club. If they continue at present levels, only Exeter and perhaps one other Premiership club will be able to bankroll a team to match Briss. In other words, the Prem would become non-competitive. Is that what we want ?

I said a while ago clubs making huge losses is still a form of cheating, not sure it went down well mind you, but if youíre spending more than you have not sure what exactly else you can call it.

Re Landsdown at Bristol, good luck to the guy, donít begrudge him his wealth or him wishing to spend it on his beloved rugby team, but I canít say heís particularly good for the English game or National team. (Sorry Brizz fans) However under the current model where millionaires are allowed to bankroll our teams then him and his chums are the end result.

Either we go back to basics where clubs only spend based on their earnings supplemented by RFU payments, the RFU somehow takes control of the clubs or we have the current chaotic situation. The problem is there are haves and have nots but we canít get too precious as the have nots would love an owner like Landsdown.

Okay then, letís call it permissible cheating! Will offer an example, if next season we amassed a championship winning squad with marquee players paid even more than Charles P allegedly earns, we employ top international coaches, backroom staff, etc etc (you get the gist) and we walk the Premiership. However, and itís a big however, we amass a £50m debt by doing so because we didnít have the budget to cover these goodies. Yeah itís allowable (for some inexplicable reason) but to me it is cheating other clubs, especially those who act in a prudent manner.

Personally I think debts should be punishable and why the salary cap should be commensurate with turnover. I know Iím in a minority of one but I think Wasps spending £14m they donít have isnít too far away from the sins committed by everyoneís favourite North London club. Canít really understand the lack of a stink kicked up about it tbh.

Exiled FalconOkay then, letís call it permissible cheating! Will offer an example, if next season we amassed a championship winning squad with marquee players paid even more than Charles P allegedly earns, we employ top international coaches, backroom staff, etc etc (you get the gist) and we walk the Premiership. However, and itís a big however, we amass a £50m debt by doing so because we didnít have the budget to cover these goodies. Yeah itís allowable (for some inexplicable reason) but to me it is cheating other clubs, especially those who act in a prudent manner.
Personally I think debts should be punishable and why the salary cap should be commensurate with turnover. I know Iím in a minority of one but I think Wasps spending £14m they donít have isnít too far away from the sins committed by everyoneís favourite North London club. Canít really understand the lack of a stink kicked up about it tbh.

The question is, does being in debt/running at a loss in itself become punishable, in which case everyone bar Exeter is punished (with points deductions perhaps), or just debt/loss over a certain level? And who's to say what level is allowed, as a £2m loss might be fine for a club like Leicester but really bad for ourselves or Irish. Obviously every club would want their level of loss to be allowed. Or we could see owners just writing off losses, which doesn't do much for the club's sustainability.

Then there's investing in facilities - what if this leads to a club making a loss in a particular year?

Some kind of wage cap tied to turnover might be useful, but that just favours the bigger clubs and those whose investors can put in a truckload of money every now and then.

Hey Leipy, no worries at all, your points are absolutely spot on! Certainly not going to proclaim to be the expert on this. I think to be punishable levels of debt have to be over a certain percentage of turnover, one size doesnít fit all in this case. Not to pick on Wasps but their debt level is shocking, in fact all bar a couple are.

Youíre bang on regarding spending on facilities / infrastructure etc, in my brave new world of sensible finances, clubs would be able to create sensible levels of debt by spending on facilities, under strict criteria of course!

Living above your means us not cheating. Many people rely on credit to maintain the standard of living they desire. With rugby, as long as all finances are in the open, it is OK. What Saracens did was secretive and therefore cheating.

Exiled FalconOkay then, letís call it permissible cheating! Will offer an example, if next season we amassed a championship winning squad with marquee players paid even more than Charles P allegedly earns, we employ top international coaches, backroom staff, etc etc (you get the gist) and we walk the Premiership. However, and itís a big however, we amass a £50m debt by doing so because we didnít have the budget to cover these goodies. Yeah itís allowable (for some inexplicable reason) but to me it is cheating other clubs, especially those who act in a prudent manner.
Personally I think debts should be punishable and why the salary cap should be commensurate with turnover. I know Iím in a minority of one but I think Wasps spending £14m they donít have isnít too far away from the sins committed by everyoneís favourite North London club. Canít really understand the lack of a stink kicked up about it tbh.

Ironically, thatís exactly what we did when we won the League. Amassed a big squad at huge expense. The other clubs resented us for it.

Exiled FalconHey Leipy, no worries at all, your points are absolutely spot on! Certainly not going to proclaim to be the expert on this. I think to be punishable levels of debt have to be over a certain percentage of turnover, one size doesnít fit all in this case. Not to pick on Wasps but their debt level is shocking, in fact all bar a couple are.
Youíre bang on regarding spending on facilities / infrastructure etc, in my brave new world of sensible finances, clubs would be able to create sensible levels of debt by spending on facilities, under strict criteria of course!

A £14m debt for Wasps isn't as bad as it would be for other clubs though, since they have decent crowds and a stadium that generates a fair bit of off-field income. As long as the debt isn't about to be called in of course, and any repayments are manageable.

dick gLiving above your means us not cheating. Many people rely on credit to maintain the standard of living they desire. With rugby, as long as all finances are in the open, it is OK. What Saracens did was secretive and therefore cheating.

Again absolutely right. If we had no clubs living beyond their means in the Premiership we would have Exeter v no one each week.

Hey Dick, you and I have had fun written jousting about this before and weíre unlikely to agree but thatís part of the fun! The difference between me wracking up credit card debt and a club wracking up debt is Iím not competing with anyone.

Simon, so what youíre basically advocating is massive debts arenít really an issue? What happens when they canít be paid off or the sugar daddy has competing calls on his pennies? For a sustainable future surely we need to encourage more Exeters, at least from a financial point of view. Iím not really sure why people get their knickers in a twist about the salary cap but feel itís okay for clubs to spend way above their means.

Exiled FalconHey Dick, you and I have had fun written jousting about this before and weíre unlikely to agree but thatís part of the fun! The difference between me wracking up credit card debt and a club wracking up debt is Iím not competing with anyone.
Simon, so what youíre basically advocating is massive debts arenít really an issue? What happens when they canít be paid off or the sugar daddy has competing calls on his pennies? For a sustainable future surely we need to encourage more Exeters, at least from a financial point of view. Iím not really sure why people get their knickers in a twist about the salary cap but feel itís okay for clubs to spend way above their means.

I'm not advocating that at all and it is ridiculous for you to make things up about what I do and don't believe.

Here is what I actually believe - I'd like nothing more than for every club in the Premiership (or the entire World for that matter) to be solvent but being reliant on few sugar daddies is nothing like cheating every other club in the league for six seasons in my book.

Cheating/criminality is breaking the rules/law. In Premiership rugby, they permit private financial support, but impose a limit on the total of a club's players' wages. I would much rather that clubs could run without debt. But this has not been possible under professionalism due, in part, to the percieved need to compete with French clubs. The structure there is quite different. Clubs are embedded in their communities and pull in financial support from local businesses. The grounds are owned by the local authorities. Clubs pay rent, but have none of the expense of building facilities.

I am beginning to believe that professionalism has been a vast mistake. Implementation of the recommendations in the Myners report offers the only hope of maintaining our game.

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